


Love Languages

by Sherb42



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Breakfast, F/M, Fluff, Look I'm just a huge sap - you can't change that, M/M, Multi, Repressed Feelings, can be platonic, ships to be added as I write them in, talk about sewing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-10-30 23:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17837732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherb42/pseuds/Sherb42
Summary: Not all expressions of love are universal, and the Dwarfers are perfect examples for proving that point.[I made some notes a while ago after looking over how many of the Dwafer's show their affection, and the idea of exploring all of that in-depth couldn't leave my mind. Consider this a small dumping ground for shorter, shippy-er fics. Can be read in any order and can be read as platonically or romantically as you want to.]





	1. Rimmer and Lister - Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What RD fanfiction is complete without some good 'ol Lister and Rimmer action?
> 
> Thanks to @/antihero for helping out with this one - I honestly don't know why I'm the one writing this when everything you typed out was leagues better. :p

Lister woke up as his normal groggy self, haven gotten used to strong hangovers like this years ago. The lights in his shared room were on like they usually were in at this time of the morning and the sound of water being boiled mixed around with the sound of the air conditioner. Rimmer was standing by the kitchenette off to the side resting his elbow on the counter and waiting for the kettle to finish boiling. “Mornin’ Lister.” He said as casually as he could after hearing the other man awaken with a groan. 

Lister rubbed his face to wake himself up. “Hey, Rimmer,” he replied with a groan. 

“Good sleep?” Rimmer asked out of curiosity, not looking up from the thin, navy blue book that he was reading. 

“Eh, pretty normal,” Lister said as he sat up with his blanket around his body. He moved his body around so his legs were hanging over the edge of his bunk. 

The kettle made a sharp noise. Rimmer flicked a button on the base of the device, let go of his book in a puff of light, and then poured the kettle into two mugs that he had prepared before Lister had woken up with both of them had tea and sugar already inside. After the drinks were made, Rimmer took the mugs over to where their beds sat inside of the wall. Lister was given a red, souvenir of Titan one. It was pretty ghastly if you took more than a few moments to look at it’s design, but it was still a usable mug regardless. 

“You’re up early,” Lister said as he took a sip of the tea. It was fresh and sweet, a huge improvement over the cold, chunky lager that he usually drank to perk himself up in the mornings. Rimmer always seemed to be great at making up drinks. 

“Nah, you just have the sleeping habits of a narcoleptic koala,” Rimmer said with a smile as he looked up at Lister. Given the usual height difference of the two of them, this was a rare occurrence. He took a drink out of his own, much more sensible mug with the JMC logo printed on it in grey. 

Either way, they had their tea together, chatting about whatever was the topic of the moment. It was the little things like this that made their shared existences all that much better. After a while, the sound of the toaster popping up brought the two of them back to the kitchenette in their room. It turned out that Rimmer had been making them both breakfast this whole time. 

Breakfast was pretty uneventful, a typical English/’whatever we can put together’ breakfast. Lister ate a lot more than Rimmer, with the hologram only having a bit of toast. Rimmer had made his book reappear in his hands again not that long after they had started. Every once and a while Rimmer would discretely peek over his book to watch Lister eat. 

"Why do you keep looking at me as if you're expecting somethin' to happen? _Is_ something going to happen?" Lister arches a brow as he spoke with a mouthful of food. 

"What? No, why would it?" Rimmer said dismissively as he took his eyes away and back to his own plate. Rimmer didn’t need to eat, but he still found it nice to join Lister and Cat eat in a social setting. It wasn’t like Rimmer was waiting for any validation or anything for fixing up breakfast for the two of them, don’t be silly. 

Lister shrugged. "So what's that book you're lookin’ at, then?" Lister pointed with his fork. "How to appear utterly and totally suspicious, a complete guide?" 

Rimmer shook his head. “Just a novel, nothing more.” It was a novel set in an alternative universe where the history of human exploration of space was all different - people didn’t even reach Mars until the 2070’s in it. He wasn’t reading for the plot, but more the talk about their third World War and other political undertones of the world that the creator had made. 

Lister over-piled his fork with ‘bacon,’ and took it all in one bite. “I’m surprised that you haven’t put any mushrooms in this,” he said after a hard swallow. 

“Listey, you know I would never do something like that to you,” Rimmer said in a dramatic, mock-offended voice after dramatically putting his free hand on his chest. 

Lister chuckled at that, deliberately spilling some food all over his shirt. Rimmer had long ago he stopped being so uptight about all of that and just let Lister do his thing. They kept on eating, Rimmer still kept looking over his book every once and awhile. 

“C’mon, what’s wrong with ya?” Lister said trying to pry into the hologram sitting adjacent to him. 

Rimmer turned a page as if Lister had said nothing. 

“I know you can hear me, ya curly-haired smegger.” 

Rimmer rolled his eyes. “Just wondering if you liked it, that’s all.” He said quietly. 

Lister dropped his fork onto his empty plate. “Of course I do, what makes you think that I didn’t?” 

You could see the usual tension leave Rimmer’s shoulders. “That’s good, that’s good, I was just checking.” He said quickly. There was a bit of silence between the two of them. “was - was the tea any good?” He eventually was able to force out just as fast. It felt like a stupid question and he quickly felt stupid for asking it. 

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Lister said as he finished his drink and added it to his pile of dishes. 

Rimmer blinked in surprise and looked right at him. “What? really?” 

“Yeah man,” Lister smiled, “-better than Kryten.” 

“Oh, now you’re just taking the piss there.” Rimmer said irritated. 

Lister began to play with the end of one of his dreads. “Well, you used a spoon to stir it - that’s a plus on it's own.” 

Rimmer ‘tisked’ happily at the comment. If there was one thing that he could do right it was to use cutlery with his hands like a sane person. Lister picked up the two plates on the table and roughly put them in the sink. He didn’t drop the plates in the sink, he just got the approximate location of it down and called it a day. 

Rimmer sighed and closed his book. “Look, It’s just nice to see you eat something proper from breakfast every once and while instead of settling for cold curry sauce or skipping breakfast altogether. That’s all.” Rimmer said from the table. That last bit was a bit of a lie, but Rimmer was a man of pride and not much else. 

Lister looked at Rimmer with a sappy expression on his face and moved back towards him, _“awwwe,”_ he said, putting his elbows on the table and a putting a lot of work in to make his voice unbearably cutesy, _“you’ve been worried about me, I knew ya really loved me.”_

“Oh shut up.” Rimmer snapped as he put his hand on Lister’s face and pushed him away.


	2. Cat and Lister - Jacket

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't as much of a ship-related one, but more just their usual bromance on display.

“Here’s your jacket, monkey-boy.” Cat said casually as he threw Lister’s black leather motorcycle jacket onto the couch beside Lister. Lister had been playing video games at the time, unaware that Cat had even strolled in. it was a pretty uneventful day before this, they hadn’t even had their unusual monster-of-the-week or something going wrong on the ship. 

“Where’d ya find this?” Lister looked back at Cat, checking out his jacket. “I haven’t been able to find this for ages.” The last time he had seen it was after a trip into the unknown that ended up with everybody covered in glowing purple goo and crashing in his, well, Rimmer’s bunk right after a sticky and quiet ride home. Lister had woken up with the rest of his clothes and boots on hours later, but his jacket was nowhere to be found for weeks afterwards. 

“Oh yeah, I took it.” Cat said casually. 

Lister took a couple of seconds to reply. “What? Why?”

“I had ta’ fix it.”

“Fix it? What do you mean by that?” Lister asked, still not fully understanding what the Cat was saying. 

“Yeah. I took it in a little bit around the waist, re-sewed a couple of your patches and redid the lining. You have a horrible sense of fashion, and an even worse sense of care for your belongings - you know that, right?” 

Lister blinked a couple more times. He turned his head back towards the old jacket in his hands. For the first time in about 20 years, it had been properly cleaned. He reversed the jacket and looked closer at the rich maroon red lining. None of it was faded like it usually was, and the countless small repairs that been made over the years were no more. Lister looked back at the Cat, a warm smile had started to grow on his face. 

During this time Cat had moved over to the fridge and had poured himself a wine glass of full-cream milk. “Don’t think anything of it chipmunk cheeks, it’s been bugging me since the day you first put it on.” 

Lister slung the refurbished jacket over him. It was a bit too warm for having on one, but he didn’t really care about that. The new lining was flannel, making it even warmer and softer than it used to be. Lister still had that stupidly large, goofy smile on his face that didn’t leave him for ages. 

“So! Whatcha playing?” Cat eventually said with a purr as he strolled over to the couch. 

Lister picked up the controller with an excited ‘ah’ and unpaused the fighting game that he had been playing. “City of Destruction 27.”

Cat looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. “Twenty-seven? Twenty-four is leagues better, chipmunk cheeks. What’s wrong with ya?”

“Yeahhhhh, but,” Lister took a moment to reply as he was already getting sucked back in his game, “If I play this one for a while then the next time I play the good one it’s going to be way better.” Plus, Lister had been playing #24 for so many years there was nothing left for him to get out of it. He needed *something* to stop him from going absolutely crazy. 

“Maaaaan, you’re sounding more and more like an old man by the day.” Cat said as he let himself flop down onto the couch next to Lister. 

“Hey now, I am an old man,” Lister said with a nudge of his elbow into the Cat’s arm, already focused on the game. 

“So, ya’ gonna let me play?” the Cat asked as he finished his drink. He admired the work that he did on the jacket, perfect as always. It wasn’t really that hard of a job to do, but with all the tiny, un-colour-treated patches it was still quite fiddly. 

“Give – me – a - second,” Lister replied as he beat the boss of the level. _“Yessssss.”_ He hissed with a smile and a fist pump, looking back at Cat. Cat just rolled his eyes with a soft feline smile of his own. 

Once the post-boss cutscene was over, Lister went back the main menu, selected the two-player mode, and handed the Cat the good controller once the character selection scene loaded. He leaned over to the edge of the couch and picked up a second one from the floor and held down a button to have the two controllers both connected up. 

The two of them played a couple of rounds of City of Destruction #27 before reverting back to the 24th – and arguably best – version of the game for the rest of the afternoon. Cat played his usual character of the sexy, panther-esk whip-wheilding seductress ‘Camira Catress, and Lister usually played whoever he felt like at the time. 

“Baby, you can come-a-here to this, Catress!” Cat purred as he controlled the virtual woman on the screen. The Cat wasn’t all that good at any of the City of Destruction games; instead opting to spend most of his playtime admiring the jiggle physics that where in use and the simulated babes you would find in the game’s story mode. Usually, their shared gaming sessions consisted of Lister actually playing the game and Cat watching as he did it and claiming that he could do it all so much better than him. 

The two of them often played classic arcade games together. The headbands of the VR games ruined your hair, according to the Cat. The only video games that Rimmer liked to play where military strategy games (yawn), so he wasn’t any good to play with. It was something that the two of them did a lot of together, and it would be hard to find something else to trade it for.


	3. Lister and Kochanski - 3am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one ended up being really short, but damm do I like these two. Kris deserves a happy ending, alright? Or at least, something.

3am. Or really, 0324.

That’s what time it said it was on the old digital alarm clock that faced Kochanski as she lay halfway off the double bed. She pushed her hair out the way before she rolled back towards the middle with her arm out to hold onto the person that she shared it with. She felt around for longer than she needed to before realising why the other side of the bed was empty. Begrudgingly, Kochanski sat up and rubbed her face awake before forcing herself out of the warm bed. 

Kochanski walked down the hallway in a shirt that was about two sizes too big for her. It was quiet and all the lights were off aside from the faint ones lining the ground so people would still be able to see as they moved around. The smaller Starbug that she found herself currently on always seemed quiet and still, but the early morning always had a strange vibe to it. The small crew were on their way back from an exploration on an old station that didn’t end up going anywhere interesting. 

 

Lister was sitting at the controls of the ship, mind half lost in the stars. He wasn’t truly sitting on his chair, more like hovering an impossibly small amount above it. His black, quilted jacket was unzipped and an old ‘Smeg and the Heads’ tour shirt was on full display. Holly had been able to simulate it for him out of his memories, and he loved it. Cat didn’t, but the Cat didn’t have to wear it. His boots were up on the console, but they didn’t seem to affect any of the buttons or touch screens that it covered. 

“How’s the graveyard shift going?” Kochanski said as she entered the cockpit. 

Lister looked up and back at her with a smile after his concentration was broken. “Oh? It’s alright - It’s not that bad.” He said as he swivelled side to side in the chair. 

“You always seem to do a lot of night shifts.” Kochanski said with a yawn as she leaned in the doorway.

“It’s not all that bad, I don’t need’ta sleep and nothing ever happens, anyways.” Lister replied trying to assure her that it wasn’t any trouble for him. Sure, it was boring as all smeg, but it was stuff that had to get done. 

“Alright then.” Kochanski replied. She moved closer to the hologram overseeing the automated trip back to the Red Dwarf. “Ya’know, I had the strangest dream just before - I think I was in a prison with a dinosaur running around.”

“Oh smeg,” Lister laughed as he rubbed his face, “How long ago was all of that?”

“Not nearly long enough,” Kochanski replied as she moved behind Lister. She put her weight and elbows on his shoulders, hands going through his short curly hair. He needed a haircut, but it was just long enough to be able to play with it. There wasn’t any heat coming from him, any warmth that grew through this man was coming of Kochanski and just sticking to him. Even so many years into their relationship it was still strange for the both of them, but they made it work. That’s what mattered in the end. 

“C’mon, come back to bed,” Kochanski said as she started to get lost in his simulated dark brown curls. 

“Nah, I’ve still got a shift left to fill,” Lister said as he looked up and Kochanski though his hair. His fringe had been tossed around enough for him to be able to see it. 

“You know that nothing is going on, nothing ever happens to us.” 

“That’s exactly what people say right before they get jumped by a whole fleet of simulants.”

Kochanski smiled, “You’re no fun.”

Lister stuck his tongue out a tiny bit in a playful manner. “I’m not gonna to explain to the other’s that we got ambushed because I was too busy shaggin’ instead of keeping watch.”

Kochanski laughed into Lister’s hair at his very classy way with words. “Can’t you get Kryten to swap shifts with you?”

“Nah,” Lister replied, “he’s been spending all night steam-cleaning and waxing the cargo hold. I couldn’t get him out of that – it would be cruel.”

Kochanski smiled to herself and gave Lister a kiss on the shiny H that was stuck to his forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

Lister looked over at the clock in the corner of the display. “It is the morning, ya know.” 

“Hey, being smart is my job,” Kochanski said playfully as she began to leave the cockpit, she stopped when she got to the doorway and turned back around, hair bouncing around as it happened. “Oh, and when you come, make yourself a little more presentable,” Kochanski said with her eyelids low. She would be sure to do the same. 

Kochanski was the type of person to put a lot of work towards that stuff. Lister wasn’t as much, but she prided herself in her actions and cared a lot about what she and her partner could mutually do for each other. That was sort of the reason why she and Lister didn’t last all that long the first time they were together - but all these years later Lister’s high level of casual intimacy had long grown on her. It was like expensive wine, the longer it had been around the better it got. 

“Hey - you know ya love me,” Lister called out as he shook his jacket off and fluffed his hair back out, doing everything that he could to prove his point. 

Kochanski laughed a happy laugh as she headed back to bed. Out of everybody for Holly to have brought back for her, she was thankful that it was him.


End file.
